But then, is there cowardice in the acknowledgment of fear? Is there cowardice in being glad that you lived?

Max lifted his head, with great sorrow and great astonishment. 'There were stars,' He said. 'They burned my eyes.’ ...from a Himmel street window, he wrote, the stars set fire to my eyes.

There were people everywhere on the city street, but the stranger could not have been more alone if it were empty.

Why me?' I ask God. God says nothing. I laugh and the stars watch. It's good to be alive.

I thought what if death is more like thinking, well, war is like the boss at your shoulder, constantly wanting more, wanting more, wanting more, and then that gave me the idea that Death is weary, he's fatigued, and he's haunted by what he sees humans do to each other because he's on hand for all of our great miseries.

There are two magic acts I want to pull off when I write. One is creating a feeling that when you're inside a book, you believe everything you're reading even when you know it's not true. And the second is an extension of that, which is you know it's not true, you know it's not real, but you believe it anyway. And it's that believing of the story that isn't real that attracted me to writing and storytelling in general.

What would you do if you were me? Tell me. Please tell me! But you're far from this. Your fingers turn the strangeness of these pages that somehow connect my life to yours. Your eyes are safe. The story is just another few hundred pages of your mind. For me, it's here. It's now. I have to go through with this, considering the cost at every turn. Nothing will be the same.